Well I live in a farming town so i have access to many fruit tree branches but everyone uses ridiculous amounts of chemicals and I don't know how long that stays in the wood so I don't like to use them. I have an ornamental cherry tree myself that isn't sprayed with anything, but I don't know the exact species so I would be afraid to use that as well.

Your right you do need ones that have not been sprayed.Cherry has had a lot of controversal comments on it so its best avoided to play safe.Have you any willow nearby because that is good and they love chewing the bark.I just give it a gentle scrub in warm water then dry before making perches.I am lucky I have over 3 acres of hazel coppice with willow, hawthorn and beech amongst others on it to take branches from.

No willows. No naturally grown trees, just sage brush dirt and farm orchards. I want a 24" perch and online I only see manzanita which I find to be a bit too slippery for him. I'm going to keep my eyes open for some willow trees. Are all willow tree species safe?

As far as I know in the UK all our willow species are safe as are most nut tree woods.Not sure if you are in the US if you have any species we don't.Maybe someone else on here would know.Have you got any friends with unsprayed trees in their gardens that need pruning.Have you any freecads you could put a wanted advert in like Craigslist.

I could post on Craigslist but may just be easier to buy one online or try to make a trip to the bird store. I am in the US Some people have weeping willows and Australian willows and the other common garden tree is an ash tree. I don't know if there are different species of ash trees or if they are safe. I get very worried about bringing toxins in from trees i stumble across. There aren't any natural trees in my area and not many in gardens either because of draught and extreme heat in the summers. I'm going to check petco for new perches today but I think I've bought all the good ones they carry.

I bought many new perches from petco and will use a rope up top while he heals and I look for a natural long perch. He's been running along the rope one singing so I think he likes that one. I only switched a couple of perches out for now so that he doesn't get too stressed.

One person mentioned stoping the use of vitamin e oil. That seemed to make a dramatic improvement in his feet after we started using it so now I'm torn whether or not I should keep using it. Does anyone else have experience using it?? I wanted to use sorbelene cream but there isn't any at the stores in town and shipping estimated 10 days so i resorted to the oil.

I have used vit e oil on a dogs nose that was a bit dry and cracked when we got her. It too caused a dramatic improvement. I can't find anything on the web to say putting on your birds feet will cause any harm and vit e is supposed to be good for skin.Maybe someone else might know of a reason it shouldn't be used, but I can't find any reason why not if it is doing good.

For some people finding branches of untreated bird safe woods can be a problem and there are many reasons for this ranging from the spraying of trees by cities or farmers to try to protect their crops all the way to not knowing which trees and bushes are safe for their birds. Here is a link that can help you with finding bird safe plants, trees and woods that you can make perches from viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12521 The actual listing begin on the second page of this topic and it covers more than just tress and woods both toxic and safe. To my way of thinking this list or others like it are an important reference for anyone that has a bird, I hope that you find it to be as useful as I have found it to be.

Concerning the dowel type perch that you have, I don't like to waste anything if I can find a way to avoid it, so what I do with the ones that are dowels is to carve them up with my pocket knife, a dremel with the sanding drum or what ever tool I have handy that I can cut our pieces of the wood to create an uneven surface that is not completely round so that the pressure on the birds feet changes according to where it perches on the dowel.